


The Genius of the Island

by morwen_of_gondor



Category: L'Île mystérieuse | The Mysterious Island - Jules Verne, Vingt mille lieues sous les mers | Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea - Jules Verne
Genre: "Mysterious Island" Nemo is an introvert who has to suddenly deal with people around, Bittersweet, Canon Character of Color, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Death, Friendship, Gap Filler, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Humor, Sad Ending, Tragedy/Comedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:13:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22534540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morwen_of_gondor/pseuds/morwen_of_gondor
Summary: The Mysterious Islandas written by Jules Verne is only half of a story. It tells the tale of men cast away on an uncharted island which seems to be haunted by some benevolent spirit, which repeatedly and mysteriously intervenes to help them, forever remaining hidden itself.Said spirit is a little more...human...than they think, and he has his own story to tell. It all began when a man and a dog fell out of the sky and nearly hit him on the head.
Relationships: Capitaine Nemo | Captain Nemo & Cyrus Smith | Cyrus Harding, Capitaine Nemo | Captain Nemo & Top (L'Île mystérieuse), Capitaine Nemo | Captain Nemo/Captain Nemo's Wife
Comments: 23
Kudos: 22





	1. A Man Fell From the Sky Today

**Author's Note:**

> So I reread _The Mysterious Island_ recently, right after reading _20,000 Leagues Under the Sea_ , and started wondering what Captain Nemo's perspective on the events of the book might have been. Here he is, minding his own business and being alone and sad on a deserted island, waiting to die, and five men just kind of...fall out of the sky. Why does he help them? Why does he never contact them until he's dying? The idea of delving into his thoughts intrigued me, and here this is.
> 
> Heads up to the reader: this ranges from humour to drama to (arguably) tragedy. The tone of the writing and action will vary widely from chapter to chapter. 
> 
> Also, Cyrus Harding's last name is not Smith, and Jules Verne can fight me.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pretty much what the title says. Captain Nemo's thought process as his nice solitary uninhabited island suddenly ceases to be uninhabited.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am planning to update this on Sundays, but the schedule may not be consistent.

"Oh no," Captain Nemo said wearily, looking up through the water at the man and dog who had just fallen from the sky. "Not again." _1200 miles from the nearest inhabited land,_ he thought, _who knows how far from the nearest shipping route, and white men still try to drown themselves wherever I go._ This was, perhaps, a little unfair. Still, when a man goes out of his way to live over a thousand miles from the nearest people (more or less), he expects his privacy. For that matter, any man who goes to live in a submarine permanently expects his privacy. The world, apparently, did not agree with this sentiment.

While Nemo had been reflecting on how unfair it was that men should literally drop from the clouds to spite him, the man and the dog had been swimming towards the island, with very little success. They appeared to be caught in a current which, while it did not affect Nemo thirty or so feet underwater, must have been very strong on the surface. Dog and man appear to be doing their best to help each other, but it’s not enough. In the end, they sink.

Nemo sighs and drags the strange white man out of the water. The dog helps him. Once they’re on the beach, he stares down at his unexpected rescue, who is still breathing, if only just. The man is in an American military uniform which declares him to be one Captain Harding. _Better American than British,_ Nemo thinks. He doesn’t _like_ Americans — he doesn’t like any nation — but they did beat the British once. "Very well, I'll help him," he says aloud to the dog, who is barking furiously. The dog continues to bark. It then occurs to Nemo that he is still wearing his diving gear, complete with helmet. He takes it off and the dog immediately stops barking and starts licking his hand. 

Once he’s sure that Harding is going to keep breathing, he sits down on a boulder and thinks things through. Men do not magically appear in the sky. Therefore this one fell from something. There was no ship visible. Therefore he fell from an airship. Men (unless they are very, very foolish) do not fly airships alone. If they do, they don’t make it through storms like the one that has just been raging. Therefore Harding has friends. They, presumably, landed somewhere on the island. They were obviously in distress or Harding would never have fallen. Therefore they would have landed as soon as they could. Therefore they are either on the islet or on the eastern shore, a mile and a half or so to the south of his current position.

Now Nemo has no intention of being found. Americans or not, he came here for peace, quiet and solitude. Harding’s friends, if what he’s seen of the man’s character is any indication, are going to come looking for their comrade. He hides his diving gear in his boat, which he then moors out of sight, puts on Harding’s shoes, and picks the man up. He makes for a small cave that he knows of in the nearby sand dunes, carefully leaving a clear set of tracks all the way up from the tide line. He sets Harding down carefully in the back of the cave, well out of the wind, returns the shoes, finds a convenient spot for concealment (barefoot, he leaves no footprints that anyone could follow), and waits.

And waits. The dog splits its time between curling up next to its master to keep him warm and making friends with Nemo, who has nothing else to do and likes dogs better than men in any case. He checks on Harding once every few hours to make sure the man is still breathing and give him a little water. It’s been almost 24 hours, and if Harding’s friends don’t show up soon, Nemo will have to take the man to the Nautilus, which he would rather not do. He judges that he can wait until nightfall, but no longer.

Just as he is about to resign himself to the inevitable and take Harding to his boat, he hears running footsteps. He sends the dog back to its master and sits perfectly still, waiting. He isn’t _worried,_ but he does want to ensure that he hasn’t done all this work for nothing. He assumes that he will hear something to the effect of "Thank heaven, he’s alive." Instead, he is horrified to hear sobbing. _Did I leave Harding too long? Surely he’s not dead? No, he can’t be. I checked not half an hour ago. The dog would have told me if he was dead._ Then, in irritation, _Confound that man, can’t he take a pulse?_

Nemo peers around the dune, carefully, and sees the servant (Nemo supposes that is what he is, as he addresses Harding as "master") adjuring the dog, evidently named Top, to find somebody named "Spilett". Top bounds off cheerfully in the direction indicated, apparently to find more of Harding’s friends, one of whom will hopefully be capable of determining that Harding is not, in fact, dead. The servant takes shelter in the cave from a brewing storm. Which will doubtless destroy his trail. _Oh dear,_ Nemo thinks. Top is evidently an intelligent animal, but no dog can follow a trail that has been blown away. It would seem that Top comes to this conclusion as well, because about five minutes after the storm has started in earnest, he comes bounding up to Nemo. Then he sits down and looks imploring. Nemo buries his face in his hands. Top licks his ear and whines. Nemo looks up and asks him, "Why me, of all people?" 

Top appears to take this as "yes, I will help you find your people," and barks happily. Nemo hurriedly shushes him, and, for the second time that day, tells him, "Very well. But do not expect me to do this again." He knows, more or less, where Harding’s companions must have landed, and there is very little shelter in that area. They’re probably in the rocks by the river-mouth. He takes Top to the river in his boat. The dog starts barking excitedly once they’re near. Somebody throws a torch into the air, and Nemo lets Top go. Then he makes for the Nautilus at once, before he has to rescue anyone else. A niggling feeling at the back of his mind tells him that this won’t be the last he hears of the castaways. He ignores it. After all, if he really wants solitude, all he has to do is stay underwater. They’ll never find him.


	2. Exploration and Explosions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nemo, watching his island's new inhabitants from afar, finds himself more and more interested. Top picks a fight that he can't finish.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Late update my first week! Sorry guys. It's a longish chapter, though, so maybe that will make up for it.

A few days later, back on the Nautilus, Captain Nemo finds himself unexpectedly bored. He thought that he had adjusted quite well to his uneventful life on a desert island, and even enjoyed the routine after the unpredictable life he had led when the Nautilus was free to sail the seas. (Of course, he misses all his friends badly, but he is careful not to think of that too often. He realised that he had to avoid that train of thought years ago when he caught himself saying, "I think I might even welcome Mr. Land’s unsophisticated company.") Now, however, his routine seems rather dull. There is no music except what he plays himself. He wishes that he had brought a piano or a violin as well as an organ. He’s read all the books in the library several times. He keeps himself in good condition, for which precaution he was thankful earlier when he found it necessary to carry Harding for a quarter of a mile over land, but there’s only so much time he can spend on that. 

He decides to finish the organ fugue he’s been writing and finds that he is, instead, sketching designs for an airship on the margins of his staff paper. He considers organising the library, but the first book he takes down is a record of castaways on a desert island who were subsequently rescued and decided to publish their story. He looks around the Nautilus and sees the ghosts of dead or missing friends everywhere he goes, as though he were back in the unhappy year after the death of his last companion, when he was forced to navigate the Nautilus alone to the nearest harbour. Finally, he gives up, puts his diving suit in the boat, and rows out of the bay to see if he can find the castaways. Perhaps the presence of living men will banish the ghosts of memory. 

In the subsequent weeks, castaway-watching takes up a significant place in his daily routine. They have taken up temporary residence in the rocks, which they have christened the Chimneys, by the mouth of the river, now called the Mercy. This means that it is fairly easy for him to watch them unseen from the water. If he is careful, he can walk up the river a little way, take off his helmet, and listen to what they’re saying. In his defence, they are interesting men and he really has very little else to do. Harding seems to be the sort of person whose company Captain Nemo would have enjoyed if he hadn’t sworn never to go among men again: resourceful, knowledgeable, and a natural leader. He sets his companions to all sorts of useful work, beginning with pottery, which, Nemo supposes, is the easiest thing to make if you must build a life from nothing.

When they pause their work to explore the island, Nemo cannot follow them as easily. He listens to their plans, however, and decides to take up his station in the lake, which he can reach by a system of submarine tunnels. He is there, watching them take their survey of the lake’s edge, when a large dugong finds its way up from the sea through the tunnels. Nemo has no desire to annoy the creature, which, while an herbivore, is dangerous when provoked. He stays very still and waits. Unfortunately for all concerned, Top, an animal of acute senses, it appears, scents the dugong. 

The first thing Nemo knows of this is that Top is in the water and has just bitten the beast’s nose. Nemo calls Top an idiot in several languages as the startled dugong drags the dog to the bottom of the lake. Nemo stands up, distracting the dugong and causing it to let go of Top. He seizes Top and hurls him as far out of the water as he can. Hopefully the dog gets the message. At any rate, he doesn’t get in the way again. Once Nemo has dealt with the furious dugong, he promptly makes his exit, hoping that the colonists don’t look too closely at the body and see that it was stabbed rather than bitten. 

Nemo stays away from the colonists (they have decided to call themselves that, rather than castaways) for a good long time, afraid that another odd incident will give them reason to suspect his presence. He returns to his old routine of reading, music, exercise and diving, although it really has begun to pale in comparison to the things that happen around the island’s new inhabitants. At most, he watches them from a distance. Fortunately, nothing else happens which might require his intervention. Then one morning while he is wandering around in the water-filled cavern under the lake, a shockwave knocks him down and nearly out, though it fortunately does not damage his diving suit. 

Ears ringing, he hurriedly climbs to the level of the lake, and discovers, to his immense surprise, that it is lower than it was. He doesn’t dare put his head above water for fear of being seen, but he doesn’t need to do that in order to see that there is a massive hole in the granite wall which prevented the lake from spilling onto the beach. It would seem that his…friends? Rescues? He’s not sure what to call them…have been manufacturing high explosive. They will probably be in the vicinity soon to see the results of their handiwork soon, and the lake’s level is falling rapidly, so he retreats back into the tunnels while he can. Curious as to what motivated this remarkable feat, however, he retreats to sea level and no further. As he’s eighty feet down a perpendicular well and underwater, he has no fear of being found. The upper caves are soon completely clear. Nemo is rather impressed.

He’s even more impressed — and slightly annoyed — when the idiotic dog finds him and starts barking like a maniac. He hisses, "Quiet!" from inside his helmet, but Top either doesn’t hear or doesn’t like that he can smell his friend and not see him. _How_ Top can smell him, Nemo has no idea. The colonists follow Top and investigate the cave to see why he is barking, but there is nothing for them to see in the well, and no way for them to find him. From their talk, Nemo learns that they hope to turn the caverns formerly filled by water into a more secure dwelling than the Chimneys. _A remarkable idea,_ he thinks. _I will have to see how they mean to go about it._

It was autumn when the colonists discovered their "Granite House," as they have termed it. Throughout the winter, which is, as usual, fairly severe, they stay mostly indoors. Nemo watches them from the well, routinely announced by Top, who is uncannily good at knowing when he’s there. Nothing terribly exciting happens, but Nemo finds himself liking the colonists more and more. They are honest, diligent, patriotic men who are deeply loyal to each other. Harding is a thoroughly knowledgeable engineer, and Nemo occasionally wishes that he could come out and talk shop with the man. It seems that there have been some developments in technology since he hid himself beneath the waves. For the first time, he begins to regret cutting off all communication with the outside world.

The most exciting thing that happens over that winter is that the colonists discover a bullet in their main course one evening. Their consternation is rather amusing, and he almost considers climbing out of the well to greet them and see their faces when the man responsible for the bullet appears like a genie from a bottle. Almost. 

With the return of spring, Nemo’s guests, as he has begun to think of them, return to their outdoor pursuits. They set themselves to domesticate animals, explore the island, and generally make themselves masters of their small domain. The sailor decides that he wants a canoe to explore the coastline, and proceeds to build one with remarkable alacrity. As always, Nemo watches. For the fun of it, he helps one of their captured animals — a large turtle — escape, and then watches the ensuing confusion. (He also felt rather sorry for the creature.) He is fairly certain that Captain Harding, at least, knows that something is not quite normal about this island (apart from the bullet, which they put down to the inhabitants of a storm-driven vessel which has since left the island), but rests secure in the knowledge that his retreat is wholly secure from their discovery, and they could scour the whole island and find nothing. The idea of a ship in fear of being wrecked, however, gives him an idea.

He goes back to the Nautilus and finds a large, waterproof sea chest and a couple of equally large barrels. He fills the chest with the things which the colonists seem to miss the most, and have no easy way of making themselves: guns and gunpowder, shirts, cooking utensils, a few carefully-chosen books. He is careful to include an encyclopaedia of natural history for the boy. The colonists are devout men, so he includes an English Bible that he has used himself. As he examines it to ensure that there are no identifying marks, he sees a passage that he underlined long ago, in gratitude for the peace and solitude he found on the Nautilus: "For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened." He adds a small cross in the margin now: it seems that both he and the colonists have received or will receive something for which they asked without knowing it. (He pushes aside the niggling voice which whispers that he has only half accepted his own gift, that he should go and speak to these men as well as help them from the shadows. They are not the kind of men who would offer sympathy to…a man like him, he thinks.)

Then he closes the chest and secures the contents so that water cannot get in, and waits, watching the progress of the canoe, which is swift. The day it is finished, the colonists express their intention of setting sail in it the next day. Nemo goes back to the Nautilus, and waits for night. Under cover of darkness, he floats his chest ashore a few miles from Granite House, where it will stick in the sand as the tide recedes, but be clearly visible from the sea, where it will look as though it was thrown overboard from a ship and came to rest on the island.

The next day, he observes the discovery of the chest and its return to Granite House. Despite not being present to receive the colonists’ gratitude, he is rather embarrassed by it. The cook and the sailor greet each article in the chest with shouts of joy, and the boy is actually rendered entirely speechless for a few minutes upon the discovery of his encyclopaedia. Nemo waits until the engineer discovers the marked passage in his Bible, and then slips away again, unable to watch further. _Perhaps,_ he thinks, _I should have done this sooner._

He still pushes away the voice that tells him to reveal himself, that he would be welcomed as a benefactor and friend. He has plenty of time.


	3. The Invasion of Granite House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The colonists go exploring, and come back to find their home occupied. No one is more surprised than Captain Nemo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm beyond apologising for my bad update schedule. It will probably continue to be bad, but this work will not be abandoned. So, without more ado, here's a very late Chapter 3.

Having discovered this chest, which seems as though it came from a shipwreck, the colonists conclude that it is their duty to search for any possible survivors who may have landed on the island. They take the sailor’s new canoe as far up the river as possible, tie it up, and make their way around the island by foot, regardless of the fact that it will put them on the wrong side of said river, which they as yet have no reliable way to cross. The sailor, who thinks mostly of food and tobacco and rather reminds Nemo of Ned Land, promises at the outset that he will make them a way to cross.

However, as Nemo is enjoying both his usefulness and his guests’ mystification, he breaks the canoe’s moorings in such a way that it looks like an accident and carefully floats it down the river, then waits. When he hears that the colonists are near enough to catch it, he lets it go, then takes off his helmet and listens for confirmation that they did, in fact, notice the canoe in time to grab it. They do, and he is in the process of putting his helmet back on when he catches a muffled shout of anger from the other shore of the river. Upon seeing that the ladder into Granite House has been pulled up, he is quite as mystified as the colonists, but they soon conclude that there is nothing to be done for the night, and Nemo agrees with them, as he’s rather tired and not in the mood for a moonlight dive ending in a potential battle. He retreats to the Nautilus for the evening, puzzled and a little worried about who or what could have invaded the island without him noticing.

The first thing next morning, Nemo puts on his diving suit and prepares to investigate Granite House, since he has a means of ingress that the colonists do not. The invaders prove to be orangoutangs, and Nemo does not know whether to be amused or utterly exasperated with the blasted creatures. Down on the beach, if the shouts and gunshots are any indication, the colonists have made the same discovery and are in much the same emotional quandary. Nemo, who does not fancy being on the receiving end of a stray bullet, waits until the colonists have given up shooting at their unexpected guests through the windows, then climbs out of the well and goes monkey-chasing. The creatures are easily alarmed, and Nemo’s helmet-clad visage rising from the depths of the well, combined with a few theatrical gestures with the well-cover, more than does the trick. He’s careful to keep well away from the windows, though, to avoid both bullets and the possibility of being sighted. Once the house is more or less clear, he throws down the ladder and retreats into the well before anyone can see him. 

At the bottom, he waits to hear what the colonists make of this latest episode in the series of strange occurrences. Their bafflement is quite satisfying. Nemo rather enjoys being a mysterious helper from the shadows.

The house is not, as things fall out, completely clear. One of the invaders is captured, and Harding orders the sailor not to kill it, as, he declares in a very odd tone, it must have thrown down the ladder to them! Nemo, muffling his laughter, cannot tell if the man is serious or not. He really is enjoying this. Maybe the next time they need his help, he’ll actually come out and talk to them, just to see their faces.


	4. The Good Fortune of the Bonadventure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The castaways build a ship and proceed to have adventures. So does Nemo, but they don't know about that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *crashes through window with fic* I'M BAAAAAAAACK!
> 
> Update schedule? What update schedule? I told you this wasn't abandoned though.

The next project his guests propose is so unlikely as to be almost impossible, Nemo thinks. They have decided to build a real ship, albeit a small one. But then, if you had asked him a year ago whether a group of castaways with no instruments or minerals except what they have built and found could successfully formulate and then use nitroglycerin without blowing themselves to kingdom come, he probably would have said that was impossible too, so he watches with interest as a small but quite seaworthy ship takes shape under Pencroft’s direction. By the time, nearly a year later, that the ship, christened the _Bonadventure,_ is finished, he’s no longer surprised at these men achieving whatever they set their minds to.

Having obtained a ship, Pencroft quite naturally wishes to sail it somewhere, and, now that they have charts courtesy of Nemo, he finds somewhere to go: Tabor Island, only about 200 miles away, or three days’ good sailing. Harding, quite sensibly, vetoes the idea. It’s far too risky, he says, to sail out of sight of Lincoln Island for no benefit save satisfied curiosity. It is a sensible decision based on the information he has, anyway. Nemo happens to know that there’s a castaway on Tabor Island who is probably rather overdue for a rescue. So, when the colonists take their _Bonadventure_ around the island, he floats up a message in a bottle claiming to be from said castaway. Nemo isn’t sure which the sailor is more delighted by: the possibility of a new companion or the chance to try out his beautiful (and she is, Nemo gladly admits) new ship.

In the interests of humanity, Harding is more than happy to cede his point, and _Bonadventure_ sets out as soon as she can be provisioned, with the intention of coming back after spending a day on Tabor Island. Nemo finds himself oddly worried. For the first time in…well, years now…the colonists are beyond his help. If they find trouble on the sea, he can do nothing for them. He waits anxiously for their return, and so on the sixth day, he is already outside the _Nautilus_ in his diving gear when a tremendous storm blows in in the afternoon, and he realises that by nightfall the island will be entirely invisible from the sea.

Nemo springs into action now. He sheds his diving suit, leaves it in a safe nook on the shore, and runs up to the plateau the colonists have christened Prospect Heights. Borrowing a hatchet from their stores, he sets to work to build a beacon that will be visible from the direction of Tabor Island. In his hurry he nearly forgets to check if the colonists are on the plateau before hastening out to his work. By the time his woodpile is large enough, it’s properly dark, and he fears terribly lest the ship already have blown past the island. If only _Nautilus_ was free, he would not worry for them, but she is not, and there is no recourse if they miss their landing in the dark. His hands shake as he lights the beacon, and none of the colonists are more relieved than he is when _Bonadventure_ sails into the harbor shortly afterwards, safe and sound.

Unfortunately, though inevitably, somebody mentions to Harding over dinner that a fire was lit on the plateau that night, and the man proceeds to list off all the things Nemo has been doing for them lately. They unanimously resolve upon a search of the island in order to find and thank their mysterious benefactor. Nemo beats a hasty retreat from the well before someone has the bright idea of taking off the well cover while he’s in it. As he climbs down the jagged rocks that form a natural ladder to the surface, he slips and catches himself just in time to escape a nasty fall (and a tremendous noise). He holds on desperately for almost a minute before easing himself downwards once more. That has not happened before and he doesn’t like the implications. Perhaps it is time to take some well-earned vacation from his self-appointed duties as guardian angel. The colonists hardly need his help at this point anyway.

But at that thought he catches himself. It’s not quite true, not yet. Tabor Island is on the charts. Lincoln Island is not. If someone comes looking for the missing Ayrton — and he believes they will, true to their word — then they will miss him and the castaways alike. There is one more thing to do before he can rest. He borrows _Bonadventure_ for some sailing of his own and finds her apt to her name: a sweet sailor with a remarkably fast pair of heels. He leaves behind on Tabor Island a document recording the location of Lincoln Island and stating the existence of multiple castaways. 

Once _Bonadventure_ is safely back in her harbour, Nemo wearily makes his way home to _Nautilus,_ and sleeps for nearly a day. It is no mean feat to sail for three days alone, and he’s not as young as he was. He’s definitely earned a vacation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would apologise for being shockingly late with this, but _The War of the Ring_ has been taking all my energy, so I'm not going to. Hope you enjoy the very late update!


	5. There Are Pirates, Who Cause Problems

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What it says on the cover. Pirates show up to the island. The colonists are not pleased and neither is Nemo. He was on vacation, darnit!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After another massive delay, here's another new chapter! I promise this will eventually be finished.

It’s been some time since Nemo came close to the colonists. He’s wary of getting too far away from the _Nautilus_ these days, as he can no longer trust his body as far as he used, so he restricts himself mostly to diving for shorter times. The colonists don’t need his help any longer, in any case. He does occasionally make a visit to the plateau to see how their agricultural and humanitarian efforts are progressing, but he keeps his distance.

Until a ship full of pirates decides to make its most unwelcome appearance. He’s out in the harbour in his diving gear — he still likes to go out, when he can — when a ship arrives and shot begins to fly. Once he realises what’s going on, he swears fluently for several minutes. He’s really getting too old for this. He hotfoots back to the _Nautilus_ and retrieves a torpedo from the tubes. He would much rather do this from the comparative safety of the conn, but that is unfortunately impossible. He carries his torpedo into the bay, very carefully, and waits in the deep water to see what happens. The colonists put up the best fight they can, but there’s not much they can do against a ship’s cannons. However, when the pirate brig turns towards the narrow channel between the islet and the shore, Nemo sees his opportunity, plants the torpedo, and hurriedly climbs onto the islet to escape the explosion (which is as spectacular as he could wish).

Satisfied with a job well done, he prepares to return to the Nautilus, having had enough exertion and excitement for the day, but first he stops by the mouth of the well to check in with the colonists. None of them are injured, he finds out to his relief, but he also learns that six of the pirates escaped, and the corral is out of communication with Granite House. Accordingly, they set out a little later to find out what is wrong. He dares not follow until after dusk. When he does, he finds that the boy, Herbert, has been shot, perhaps fatally, and that there is no sign of Ayrton. 

Nemo is a little surprised by his own fury, but fortunately the faculty of turning emotion into focus has not deserted him in his years of calm isolation. Unfortunately there is really nothing to be done at present except to arm himself and stay on the watch. He returns to the _Nautilus_ only to eat and sleep for the next day or so, spending the rest of his time guarding the colonists at the corral, though he is careful to keep out of sight.

When the pirates invade the plateau above Granite House, the colonists decide to brave the journey back from the corral. Nemo keeps as close a watch on them as he dares, and after they return to their dwelling (fortunately without incident), resumes his old post in the well. Thus he learns that Herbert is beginning to show symptoms of malaria. He knows, like the colonists, that quinine is one of the few resources which this island does not afford. But he also knows something that they do not. The _Nautilus_ has a fully stocked sickbay, including all the medicines that he had learned to use in his long studies abroad.

It is easy to return to the _Nautilus_ and find the bottle of quinine in his neatly organised sickbay, and relatively easy to climb back to the mouth of the well. But to judge the moment when it would be safe to slip out and visit the boy’s room is not so easy. He could, of course, simply slip the bottle out from under the well cover and trust to the observant colonists to discover it, but he has no wish to draw their attention back to his observation post, and anyway they might not notice until it was too late. He listens keenly until they have gone to bed and the boy’s room is empty, and then slips out of the well, leaves the precious bottle by the bed, and disappears back into the safety of the lower caverns. Top, in a rare and blessed moment of good sense, keeps quiet, though he follows Nemo to and fro like a shadow until he leaves. Nemo rewards him with a quick ear scratch before he puts the cover on the well again.

Nemo is quietly satisfied at the news of Herbert’s recovery upon the administration of the quinine, but he is not yet willing to consider the episode closed. His island has been invaded by men of the worst possible character, and until they are stopped there will be no safety for his guests. Nemo has been an avenger of blood before, and it is time to be so again. He goes convict-hunting. With his superior knowledge of the island and his superior weaponry, he has far less to fear than the colonists, and far more chance of finding what he seeks.

He finds his quarry in a cave at the foot of Mount Franklin, and discovers that they are keeping Ayrton, whom even he had given up for dead, as a prisoner. He waits in the forest until they go to the corral for supplies, and when they come out into the open he makes his move. He may no longer wield the mightiest weapon of the seas, but his aim is as sure with a rifle as it ever was with the _Nautilus’_ iron spur, and his airgun makes little to no sound. The convicts fall, one by one, without so much as a chance to understand the fate of their comrades.

Returning to the cave, he finds Ayrton unconscious, which makes things both easier and harder. There’s no help for it, though, he has to get the man back to the corral. He has to stop several times along the way to catch his breath, and in the end he gets Ayrton back into his own bed only minutes before the colonists arrive at the corral. Then he slips away into the night, back towards the _Nautilus._ There’s a sharp ache in his chest as he walks, and it takes him longer than he expected to return to his ship. He is doctor enough to know what that means, and wonders, suddenly, if he should have revealed himself to the colonists when he had the chance just now: if he wishes to speak to them at all, it may need to be soon.


	6. The End...Mostly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The great tales never end, but those who take part in them come and go. Nemo's part in the story of the colonists is drawing to a close.

Nemo has retired to the Nautilus for the winter. Going diving alone is going slowly from difficult to impossible, and so he no longer frequents the well inside Granite House. He spends his spare time in debating the merits of revealing himself to the colonists and toying with different ways in which he could do so. Then the volcano decides to wake up and start smoking. This alone would not be cause for too much concern, but a few days later the back wall of his cave has started to crack. This is bad news for the colonists, though, he suspects, not for him: this encroaching weakness heralds his death, as well he knows. This new danger cements his determination to call the colonists and speak to them. It seems that they need their guardian angel one last time.

If he’s going to do this, it has to be now. He musters what strength he has left, runs a new telegraph wire from the _Nautilus_ to the corral, leaving a note that says to follow the new wire, and then retires to his ship. He will most likely never leave it again, and so he lets himself linger for a little in the woods, and at the base of Mount Franklin, committing the scenery to memory. A foolish gesture, but one so near death is allowed a little foolishness. 

At the hour when the colonists ordinarily gather after dinner, he sends a telegram from the bridge of the _Nautilus,_ and waits. A little over three hours later, he hears footsteps: the first men besides himself and his companions to set foot on the Nautilus in sixteen years. "Captain Nemo," says a voice at the door to his room (How do they know that name? Do they hate him? Revile him? Will they listen to him? Who could have betrayed his secret?), "you asked for us. We are here." 

Caught between fear, hope, anger and urgency, he rises to his feet — and knows, as he does so, that it is for the last time.

His colonists do not hate him. They are grateful to him. Even after they hear his story, they are grateful. His old habits of restraint prevent him from telling them how glad he is of that, but he thinks that Harding knows anyway. He sends all the other colonists (his guests now in truth, and not merely in fancy) out of the room, and tells his rescued engineer of the danger from the volcano. Harding understands. Nemo has done his last service to the colonists now. He half-expects them to leave — but they stay. 

Herbert, bless him, is weeping. Nemo did not think that there would be anyone to mourn him. He thought he would die alone. He gives Captain Harding his hand, and the man takes it. How long has it been since someone gave him even that much kindness? Perhaps he should have done this sooner…shown Harding the Nautilus, let the boy roam his library, taken the sailor and the reporter to the depths of the sea where no man save he and those he took with him had ever gone…but it is too late for that now. 

Nemo spends the rest of the day alone at his insistence. The colonists would have kept vigil with him had he asked them, and once more his gratitude threatens to overflow, but he has no more to say. Let them enjoy the wonders of the Nautilus while they can and not be distracted by her dying commander.

For a time, alone, he believes that he has dreamed of these men who answer his crimes with forbearance and his kindness with real friendship. Then he wakes to see the colonists still there to bid him farewell.

The stateroom in the Nautilus is fading. He can see his wife’s face, as beautiful as it was the day they were married. She stands between a tall man, who looks like Nemo looked, once, when he was Prince Dakkar and had hope, and a young woman who looks strikingly like her. He never saw his children grown, but he knows them anyway. Before the Nautilus has wholly faded, he whispers softly, "God and my country!" 

The next moment, he flings his arms around his wife and children. Prince Dakkar, Captain Nemo: they are the same man again, as they have not been for so many years, and that man has come home.


	7. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The story is over. This one, that is. But a new one is beginning.

_Many years pass. The colonists of Lincoln Island found a new colony, an island on terra firma within their native country. They marry and have children, sow and reap crops, build buildings, and make civilisation and order in the midst of wildness and chaos without destroying the beauty of their new home. Not a week goes by that they and their families don’t gather in somebody’s home for dinner, as they once did in Granite House._

_Cyrus Harding is governor until he insists on retiring so that he can spend more time trying to recreate the Nautilus’ engines from memory and Professor Arronax’s descriptions. He never quite manages it, but his pioneering work in the field of electrically powered engines is widely recognised. Neb, as loyal to Harding as any batman to his officer, stays with his master for the rest of his days and proves to have quite the gift for hands-on engineering in his own right._

_Speaking of officers and soldiers, Gideon Spilett is editor of the New Lincoln Herald, and a holy terror to his reporters, who would follow him into battle like soldiers if he asked it._

_Pencroft is one of the most successful farmers in the territory._

_Herbert Brown travels widely — at first with Ned Land or Ayrton, later on his own — and publishes several books on natural history, with drawings from his observations in Lincoln Island. Ayrton sails the seas for another twenty years, visiting whenever he’s on land, and finally retires to the colony a rich merchant._

_And then one day, almost forty years after his wild landing by the shores of Lincoln Island, Cyrus Harding goes to sleep in his bed and wakes up on a beach that he would know anywhere, listening to the surf crash amid the rocks of the Chimneys. The windows of Granite House look out over the bay above him — and in the bay, he sees the bright floodlights of the Nautilus, visible even in the daylight, moored by the river-mouth. A young man — whom he does not know, though there is something familiar about his face — steps out from among the Chimneys and says, "You must be Captain Harding."_

_Harding, confused, replies, "You have the advantage of me."_

_"Father has told me all about you. He said he thought you’d be coming soon." Seeing the captain’s bafflement, he adds, "You would know him as Captain Nemo."_

_Harding is the first to be welcomed back to Lincoln Island. He isn’t the last. After all, they never did manage to build Pencroft’s railway line the last time around._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I could have ended the story at the last chapter, but that felt a little too grim, so I wrote this.


End file.
